What’s the best credit card for online shopping?

Online shopping takes all of the time and stress out of making purchases. It’s fast and simple, and often requires a credit card. There are plenty of options when it comes to online shopping. But some credit cards are definitely better than others.

For example, some online credit cards are designed around spending at wholesale clubs, while others reward you for making eligible purchases on certain websites like Amazon or Costco.

With so many options, it’s easy to get confused — and that’s where Kudos can really help you out. But we’ll get to that in just a minute.

First, let’s cover the basics. This guide will explain what type of card is best for online shopping, cover four of the best credit cards for online shopping, and explore how you can maximize your rewards and keep costs down using Kudos.

What type of credit card is best for online shopping?

Before we start name-dropping some of the best credit card products on the market right now for online shopping, it’s worth taking a step back to talk about the different types of credit cards you may want to use for online shopping.

After all, the type of credit card you get should suit how you want to use it — or what you plan to buy online.

What’s the best credit card for big online purchases?

If you want to make a big, one-off purchase online, you’re going to want to consider a 0% APR credit card.

A 0% card lets you make purchases online but doesn’t charge you interest on your purchases for a set period. That period is normally between 12 and 20 months — but you may find some credit cards that’ll offer you an even longer promotional rate. Some of these cards will also give you 0% APR on balance transfers for a shorter period.

This can help you spread the cost of a big purchase over a relatively long period without worrying about paying extra interest on your card transaction. You can also use them to consolidate any existing credit card debt you may have by taking advantage of a 0% balance transfer offer.

Just bear in mind that most 0% interest credit cards are unsecured cards designed for customers with good or excellent credit. If you have bad credit, you probably aren’t going to qualify. You may also run into some interest-free cards that require minimum spending levels (or spending caps).

What’s the best type of credit card for regular online purchases?

If you’re looking for a credit card to use for everyday online purchases, you may want to consider a type of rewards credit card.

A rewards credit card will normally give you a fixed amount of points, cash back, or rewards in exchange for every dollar you spend using your credit card in online transactions.

Credit card companies with membership rewards might offer you a fixed number of points on each transaction, and then you can use the card issuer’s rewards portal to redeem those points for prizes, gift cards, concert tickets, and everything in between.

A cash back credit card is an equally useful type of rewards credit card.

Cash back credit cards offer to pay you a percentage of each eligible purchase you make using your credit card. This might include shopping at gas stations, dining at restaurants, drug stores, airline carriers, or other online retailers.

For example, if you buy something for $1,000 and you earn 3% cash back, you’ll get $30 put into your rewards balance. Once you’ve accumulated enough cash back, you can then redeem it and have it deposited into your bank account or credited to your card balance.

Finally, there are air miles credit cards.

Air miles credit cards let you accumulate airline miles on every eligible purchase — and once you’ve accumulated enough points, you can redeem those miles in exchange for flights, seat upgrades, access to airport lounges, and more. You’ll certainly not get all those rewards with a debit card.

You’ll often need to build up a certain number of points before you can redeem them, and this can take some time. But if you love to travel and make many purchases online, it all adds up pretty quickly.

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What is the best credit card for online shopping?

The best credit card for online shopping is going to depend a lot on your spending habits, whether you’re looking for credit cards with high limits, and the rewards you’re after.

That being said, here are four of the best credit cards for online shopping available right now.

Best credit card for Amazon purchases: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card

The Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card is available to Amazon Prime customers and gives them 5% cash back on your entire purchase when you shop on Amazon or at Whole Foods.

That 5% rewards rate is uncapped — and you can also earn 2% at gas stations, dining at restaurants, and on drugstore purchases. You’ll get 1% cash back everywhere else.

Best of all, the card has no annual fee. That makes this a pretty attractive option if you do a lot of online shopping at Amazon and want to start getting rewarded for it.

Best credit card for cash back: Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express

The Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express is another great option for earning cash back — and is among the best in its class because it also offers 0% APR on balance transfers for 15 months.

The Blue Cash Every Card has no annual fee and gives you 3% cash back at supermarkets, gas stations, and online retailers up to a cap of $6,000. After you hit that $6,000 ceiling, your cash back rate goes down to 1%.

You can also earn a $200 cash bonus if you spend $2,000 on eligible retail purchases using your new card within the first six months of gaining card membership.

Best online credit card for young adults: Discover it Student Cash Back

If you’re a student looking for a credit card for online shopping, you may want to consider the Discover it Cash Back card.

It gives you 5% cash back on everyday purchases at Amazon, grocery stores, restaurants, and when you pay online using PayPal. You then get an automatic 1% cash back on every other purchase.

The Discover it Cash Back card also comes with a 0% interest rate period of six months, and students can get $20 in bonus cash every school year if they keep their GPA above 3.0. But you can only earn that bonus cash five times.

Best online credit card for frequent travelers: Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

If you want to generate travel rewards through online purchases, the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is definitely worth considering.

With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, you’ll get rewards points for eating out, paying for subscriptions to streaming services, using online grocery stores, and making travel purchases. Until March 2025, you’ll also get five times more rewards points on any travel purchases you make through Chase Ultimate Rewards or Lyft.

Unlike some other rewards cards, the bonus rewards you can earn on travel are unlimited. But they’re also flexible because you can use them to redeem stuff from additional rewards categories in the Chase Ultimate Rewards program like cash back, gift cards, merchandise, or statement credits.

Unfortunately, these rewards come at a cost. There’s an annual fee of $95 with this card. But you’ll get a sign-up bonus of 60,000 points if you spend $4,000 or more within three months of gaining card membership. Those rewards are equivalent to $1,000 if you redeem through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal.

How can you make sure you’re always getting the best deal online?

If you have multiple credit cards for online shopping, you might find that figuring out which card to use for certain online purchases is often time-consuming or confusing. That’s where Kudos really comes to the rescue.

What’s Kudos?

Simply put, Kudos is a smart assistant that lives in your web browser. It sorts through data across more than 3,000 credit cards and millions of websites so that every time you go to checkout online, Kudos will be able to tell you instantly which card you should use to pay and what rewards you’ll get on that purchase.

As a result, the average Kudos customer saves more than $750 per year. Best of all, you can set yourself up on Kudos in just a few seconds. All you have to do is pick the types of cards you have — you don’t need to share any personal card information if you don’t want to. But if you do use your card details, you’ll get to take advantage of a seamless and secure autofill feature.

From there, all you’ve got to do is start shopping. Kudos does the rest.

Conclusion

Shopping can be a real joy when you’re in the right headspace for it. But crowded stores, lengthy lines, and overly-helpful employees can be pretty draining. That’s why shopping online is normally a lot faster and simpler — and choosing the right credit card can stretch your spending and save money.

But not all credit cards are created equal when it comes to shopping online. You've got to keep an eye out for minimum spend rules, foreign transaction fees, and annual or monthly fees.

That’s why it’s important to understand what you’re looking for in a credit card before you apply. Some cards are designed specifically around online retailers like Amazon, while others focus on helping you build rewards points or generate cash back on eligible purchases.

By picking the right card and taking advantage of online shopping portals and other deals, you’ll be able to generate rewards for spending or keep costs down.

So, are you ready to start shopping?

Kudos sorts through data across 3000+ cards and millions of online merchants so that when you are ready to check out, our assistant can scan your wallet to tell you how you should pay and what rewards and benefits you'll get on that purchase. Add Kudos to Chrome now.